Explaining why "Blues Brothers" Is a Musical and "The Little Mermaid" Is not

Blues Brothers, a Musical?
Last weekend while I was watching television I thought about classic Hollywood musicals. Some titles that came to mind were memorable titles such as "The sound of Music", "Mary Poppins", "Grease", and more contemporarily, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". Added to this list should be the fine film of "The Blues Brothers". "The Blues Brothers" you ask. Yes, this movie is a good example of a movie musical in the classic sense because it fits the criteria for a classic movie musical. The director, Jonathan Landis, is quoted as saying: "It has always frustrated me that no one saw the Blues Brothers as a musical. When I was doing it, I saw it as directing a musical" (A Note). This statement alone gives credence to the idea of the "Blues Brothers" movie being, in fact, a musical. When the movie was created, it was imagined to be like an old Hollywood musical with performance numbers and musical comedies to further the plot (Musical). …